[au] Narnia and the North

[the_seafarer]

There's a chill bite to the air, these days. The horses have been growing out their winter coats, and they look shaggy and plump as Caspian turns them out into the paddocks. Behind the stables, in the makeshift woodshop he'd cobbled together, the sleigh from his drawings is starting to come together. 

He hopes he'll have it finished by Christmas. With a little luck, and maybe some assistance, he thinks it should be possible. The tack, he's largely left up to Susan's devices, though he'd commission Gimli the dwarf for the various buckles and other metal pieces they'll need.

Once the horses are turned out, he gets to his other morning chores with a will, whistling cheerfully as he does. The stable stays strangely quiet around him. It takes him the better part of an hour to realize the strangeness is because he's become accustomed to Susan's cheerful presence working alongside him, talking or humming or simply working in companionable silence. 

Caspian pauses in his task – refilling the grain chest – and looks around. Susan's nowhere to be seen, and when he later wanders through the stables, checking each stall and outside, he can't find her there, either.

Comments

[sai_delgado]

"Yar." Perhaps strangely, Cuthbert does not look entirely soothed.

(peace of the clearing)

"Just so we're clear, you're sure this leads nowhere but a garden?"

[the_seafarer]

"Yes," Caspian promises. "I swear it. Touch the trees that line the path, Cuthbert; they're real. The garden isn't a perfect place dreamed into being, only a beloved one, where flowers may grow in the depths of winter."

[sai_delgado]

He relaxes a little and nods to Caspian. "All right. I mean, it didn't seem likely to find the clearing at the end of the path out here... but stranger things have happened. And ka or not, none of us is ready to go through that door until it's time."

[the_seafarer]

He nods back. "You won't," he says, hoping that by saying it he might make it true.

There is a clearing, of course, at the end of this path, but the magic within it is of rooted, growing things – a green magic, not white or black. Caspian walks Duncan into the garden proper, and swings off the saddle before leading the gelding to the patch of grass where he and Susan have both left the horses before.

Beyond them, the garden stretches, peaceful and warm. Birdsong trills through the air, and a fat, confused bumblebee comes bobbing near Cuthbert's ear.

And near – though not very near – he can see the birch-woman tending to a row of flowers.

[sai_delgado]

He dismounts and ground-ties Kiseki to graze before scanning the area in more than a quick glance. Cuthbert's eyes are wide as he takes in the garden around them.

He doesn't recognize all the different kinds of plants he sees, but of those he does, he's sure he's seeing them in multiple seasons of growth, strange as it may be. Among the wildflowers he spots the yellow silkflowers he'd only known in Gilead, and on the light breeze he catches the faint scent of blosswood trees in bloom.

"Tears of my mother," he breathes. "I take back any and all objections."

[the_seafarer]

Caspian waits for him to look about, and breathes deep of the flower- and fruit-scented air. It's not the same as Aslan's Country, and that's all for the better, for this. "Come," he offers, and leads Cuthbert along one of the garden's branching paths, towards where the birch-woman stands, her leaves the warm emerald green of summer.

Drawing near, he stops and bows. "Sister," he says. "We came to thank you for your help, and to beg of you a favor. This is my friend, Cuthbert Allgood."

[sai_delgado]

He bows as well, leg extended and hand in a triple-tap at his throat, as formal a bow as any he's ever given.

"Long days and pleasant nights, sai," he says. "You helped my friend Susan, and I say thankya, for that."

[the_seafarer]

Curiosity from the birch-woman. She sways as if in a wind, her branches brushing carefully over Cuthbert's bowed head. her voice comes in a half-heard murmur, like a memory tickling their minds. You are welcome, sapling.

Amusement. Her leaves brush Cuthbert's hat. The others do not wear such leaves on their heads. How strange.

[sai_delgado]

Cuthbert looks up at her with a bright grin. "You say true, and I say thankya. I've long despaired of their good sense that way," he laughs.

He tips the hat from his head and walks it deftly over his knuckles and into the palm of his hand in a tumble, then offers it up for her examination.

[the_seafarer]

He can feel the birch-woman's amusement grow, like a mother indulging a child's playfulness. Against Cuthbert's light quickness, the birch-woman seems to move even more slowly, but her leaves rustle with a light breeze that spirals around Cuthbert's hat, carrying a few petals of some bloom unknown to Caspian with it. They swirl about the gunslinger's outstretched hand like a blessing.

It is good, sapling, she tells him, then turns her regard on them both. Speak your request.

[sai_delgado]

He dons his hat, heedless of flower petals, and straightens to face her.

"Today is a year since Susan - since she left our world," he chooses, with a quick glance at Caspian. Mentioning a bonfire to a tree-being just doesn't seem quite right.

"It wasn't easy for her, and she's haunted by dreams and what we fear is ill magic as the eve approaches. We'd keep her safe--" He indicates Caspian as well as himself, then continues, "we and another friend, and stand watch with her through the night, but we seek a place of refuge in which to do so."

[the_seafarer]

"We seek to spend the night here," Caspian tells her. "Until the anniversary passes."

He doesn't glance at Cuthbert; he'd promised Susan he'd ask, and he knows she'd have him tell the truth. "It may bring you trouble, sister. But we ask, anyway."

The birch-woman considers them both for a long moment. Danger?

"Perhaps," Caspian admits.

A thoughtful murmuring of her leaves.

[sai_delgado]

"If it does, we'll stand against it," he says, on the heels of that. Susan had told them not to press, but this isn't, Cuthbert decides, just making some things clear.

"To defend her and this place and you all three. I think the danger's more from within than without, but we can't be certain. Either way--"

He touches his hip and the weapon there. "--I swear on the guns of my father to do all that I can and more to keep you from harm."

[the_seafarer]

"We don't wish to bring trouble on you," Caspian murmurs. The magic here – growth and life and roots and the dance of seasons – is the best antidote he can think of for the horror of the Reap-Day anniversary.

He won't press, but he thinks the birch-woman is only considering, not balking. Your weapons are not necessary here, she tells Cuthbert, though not without sympathy. No harm will come. No killing frost and no flame. Bring her and be sheltered. Drink of the stream. Eat of the fruit. Sleep and be refreshed.

Caspian breathes out a slightly shaky breath and now glances at the gunslinger.

[sai_delgado]

"Lady-sai, we thank you," Cuthbert says, each word filled with deep respect. "Truly."

Alain will be glad, and he thinks Susan will too, once they've reassured her that it was the treewife's free choice.

[the_seafarer]

"Aye," Caspian agrees, and bows again. "Thank you."

The birch-woman sways, lonely and loving, both. My sisters sleep, she tells them. But I will stand watch.

Caspian nods, and looks to the gunslinger. "It'll be warm enough here, don't you think?"

[sai_delgado]

"It should be," Cuthbert tells him. "A few blankets for warmth just in case, a lantern for light, some other odds and ends, and we'll be well set."

[the_seafarer]

"Good."

He smiles back at the birch-woman. "We'll take our leave, lady," he tells her. "And be back before the sun sets."

[sai_delgado]

"Go your course in peace, sai," Cuthbert tells the treewife as she sways gently back and forth. "As my friend here says, we'll return soon."

It's all he can do not to dash across the garden to their horses, as filled with hope as he is.

[the_seafarer]

Go, then, is the amused memory of words. You rush about like the birds.

"I suppose so," Caspian chuckles, and turns from the birch-woman, indicating with a tip of his head for Cuthbert to join him. "We move a good deal faster than she does, after all. Well! How about we give the horses a little exercise on the way back?"

[sai_delgado]

"I think that's an excellent idea." He gives an affectionate slap to Kiseki's shoulder as they reach their mounts, checking him over with easy familiarity before he swings back into the saddle.

"As was this. You were right."

[the_seafarer]

Caspian lifts himself up with ease and settles on Duncan's back, then reaches forward to pat the chestnut's neck. "Thank you for taking the gamble," he says, and smiles over at the gunslinger before he turns Duncan back to the path that will take them out of the woods.

"Now, shall we let them run?"

[sai_delgado]

Cuthbert's answering grin is quick and bright. "You bet we should."

To his credit, he holds off on actually doing so until they've cleared the garden itself.

[the_seafarer]

In the time when they race back to the bar, it's almost as if they're both the age they look, and as though their hearts were truly beating life through their bodies.

The horses enjoy the exercise, too, and need to be properly cooled down once they've cantered back out of the forest and back towards the stable.

[sai_delgado]

She hears the sound of approaching riders while she's lunging Liaffen in the training ring. The battle-trained palomino stallion backs and snorts an alarm, and for the next several minutes all her attention's given to soothing him down and working him in pattern-circles until he's settled.

Susan praises him, gives him a bit of apple as a treat, and turns him out into his paddock before she makes her way back up to the front of the stable to meet the others. Alain's already there, helping Cuthbert to cool out Kiseki. She hesitates by the fence-rail, unaccountably nervous, then goes to Caspian and Duncan.

"Did he do well for thee?" she asks.